[Stay on top of transportation news: Get TTNews in your inbox.]
WASHINGTON — U.S. employers slowed hiring final month, however nonetheless added a stable 139,000 jobs amid uncertainty over President Donald Trump’s commerce wars.
Hiring fell from a revised 147,000 in April, the Division of Labor stated June 6. The job positive aspects final month have been barely greater than the 130,000 economists had forecast. However revisions shaved 95,000 jobs from March and April payrolls.
The unemployment fee stayed at a low 4.2%.
Well being care corporations added jobs. However the federal authorities shed 22,000 jobs, probably the most since November 2020, as Trump’s job cuts and hiring freeze had an influence.
Payroll employment will increase by 139,000 in Might; unemployment fee unchanged at 4.2% https://t.co/ZwrVfLviqL #JobsReport #BLSdata
— BLS-Labor Statistics (@BLS_gov) June 6, 2025
Common hourly wages rose 0.4% from April and three.9% from a 12 months earlier — a bit greater than forecast.
Trump’s aggressive and unpredictable insurance policies — particularly his sweeping taxes on imports — have muddied the outlook for the economic system and the job market and raised fears that the American economic system may very well be headed towards recession. However up to now the harm hasn’t proven up clearly in authorities financial knowledge.
READ MORE: Hiring Cools to Slowest Tempo in Two Years, ADP Knowledge Exhibits
Economists count on Trump’s insurance policies to take a toll on America’s economic system, the world’s largest. His large taxes on imports — tariffs — are anticipated to lift prices for U.S. corporations that purchase uncooked supplies, tools and parts from abroad and power them to chop again hiring and even lay off employees. Billionaire Elon Musk’s Division of Authorities Effectivity has slashed federal employees and canceled authorities contracts. Trump’s crackdown on unlawful immigration is anticipated to make it tougher for companies to seek out sufficient employees.
For probably the most half, although, any harm has but to point out up within the authorities’s financial knowledge.
The U.S. economic system and job market have confirmed surprisingly resilient lately. When the inflation fighters on the Federal Reserve raised their benchmark rate of interest 11 instances in 2022 and 2023, the upper borrowing prices have been extensively anticipated to tip the US right into a recession.
The large image takeaway on Might jobs report:
1) A recession doesn’t look imminent
2) However…hiring has slowed down.
3) Solely healthcare and hospitality are hiring a lot now
4) -49,200 federal gov’t jobs shed since December
5) -95,000 down in job revisions for March & AprilThis… pic.twitter.com/hFF0VpN9UX
— Heather Lengthy (@byHeatherLong) June 6, 2025
Nonetheless, the job market has clearly decelerated. To this point this 12 months, American employers have added a median of fewer than 124,000 jobs a month. That’s down from 168,000 final 12 months, 216,000 in 2023, 380,000 in 2022.
And former Fed economist Claudia Sahm warns that the job market of 2025 isn’t practically as sturdy as the 2 or three years in the past when immigrants have been pouring into the U.S. job market and employers have been posting document job openings.
“Any indicators of weak point within the knowledge this week would stoke fears of a recession once more,” Sahm, now chief economist at New Century Advisors, wrote in a Substack publish this week. “It’s too quickly to see the complete results of tariffs, DOGE, or different insurance policies on the labor market; softening now would counsel much less resilience to these later results, elevating the chances of a recession.’’
Latest financial studies have despatched combined alerts.
The Labor Division reported June 3 that U.S. job openings rose unexpectedly to 7.4 million in April — seemingly a superb signal. However the identical report confirmed that layoffs ticked up and the variety of People quitting their jobs fell, an indication they have been much less assured they might discover one thing higher elsewhere.
Brian Work of CloneOps.ai discusses the place AI brokers match into immediately’s provide chain workflows and what they may imply for the way forward for trucking operations. Tune in above or by going to RoadSigns.ttnews.com.
Surveys by the Institute for Provide Administration, a commerce group of buying managers, discovered that each American manufacturing and providers companies have been contracting final month.
And the variety of People making use of for unemployment advantages rose final week to the best stage in eight months.
Jobless claims — a proxy for layoffs — nonetheless stay low by historic requirements, suggesting that employers are reluctant to chop employees regardless of uncertainty over Trump’s insurance policies. They seemingly bear in mind how exhausting it was to deliver folks again from the large however short-lived layoffs of the 2020 COVID-19 recession because the U.S. economic system bounced again with sudden power.
Nonetheless, the job market has clearly decelerated. To this point this 12 months, American employers have added a median 144,000 jobs a month. That’s down from 168,000 final 12 months, 216,000 in 2023, 380,000 in 2022 and a document 603,000 in 2021 within the rebound from COVID-19 layoffs.
Trump’s tariffs — and the erratic method he rolls them out, suspends them and conjures up new ones — have already buffeted the economic system. America’s gross home product — the nation’s output of products and providers — fell at a 0.2% annual tempo from January by March this 12 months.
A surge of imports shaved 5 proportion factors off progress in the course of the first quarter as corporations rushed to herald international merchandise forward of Trump’s tariffs. Imports plunged by a document 16% in April as Trump’s levies took impact. The drop in international items may imply fewer jobs on the warehouses that retailer them and the trucking corporations that haul them round, wrote Michael Madowitz, an economist on the left-leaning Roosevelt Institute.
